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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28186182">Might of the Empress</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethany81707/pseuds/bethany81707'>bethany81707</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Backstory, Developing Friendships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Royalty, Scare Stories, allegiances, duties, playing unfair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:34:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,475</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28186182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethany81707/pseuds/bethany81707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Edelgard gets to meet Sanaki. They discuss their overlaps.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edelgard von Hresvelg &amp; Sanaki Kirsch Altina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Might of the Empress</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Edelgard had spent long enough in this world to recognise the fact that occasionally, the Summoner would find themselves with two instances of the same person from different time periods. The attitude to these duplicates was to let them live and let whatever happened happen. As much as it shook her to see her school day self walking around, with all the tension that came with it, she was willing to accept that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she rounded a corner, she came across a solid counterargument for allowing duplicates around. A purple haired young woman in a crimson robe was wringing her hands and looking around in panic as a younger purple haired child in a crimson robe bawled her eyes out. Edelgard was certain the two were duplicates before the elder even noticed them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the Empress Edelgard, right? I think you can lend me a hand here,” she said, with as much authority as one so young could have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I’d need to know what happened first,” Edelgard suggested.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. Well, I’m Empress Sanaki of Begnion at seventeen years old, and this is myself at ten. She asked me what I did about the problem of the Imperial Senate and when I explained what happened, she started crying,” Sanaki explained. Edelgard allowed her mind to work on her memories of her own antagonistic political faction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So can you explain it to me?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, and this is something I was doing as young as ten, I started by enforcing laws my grandmother passed that the Senate didn’t like, like the fact laguz cannot be kept as slaves. This was moreso where the Senate decided to start being a problem in return, but I believed strongly in doing the right thing. Three years later, I got my chance for more decisive action, freeing the conquered Daein people from Begnion’s occupancy and protesting vocally against the desire to go to war with the Laguz Alliance without properly validating their claims of the Senate’s wrongdoings. I got locked in my room and nearly killed by starvation for my efforts, but I managed to escape and make it to Crimea so I could rally their army to take back my title by force,” Sanaki explained. Edelgard nodded thoughtfully, quietly stripping the names she mentioned away and focusing on the ideas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That must’ve been quite distressing,” Edelgard said, looking pointedly at the child Sanaki as she did so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, no doubt. At the time, I was terrified. But I had a duty to my people, and the knowledge that Lekain would just press them all into the dirt with the invisible hand of wealth made sure that I lived to put an end to that idea,” Sanaki said, shivering in a way that had Edelgard thinking of Dorothea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I suppose you’ve at least heard of my encounter with those who slither in the dark, the Agarthans, and drawn comparisons to your own Senate, correct?” Edelgard asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Empress! You seem so confident, so assured, despite having gone through worse than me. I’m hoping you can help my younger self with your tips,” Sanaki explained. Edelgard took both a seat and a breath, wondering just where the line needed to be drawn. Under no circumstances was she going to talk about the nature of the Agarthan experiments, no matter how mature the younger Sanaki was- ten was far too young for content that graphic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you seem to have provoked your Senate in open warfare, trying to stake your victory with your silver tongue. I didn’t do that. I didn’t have the strength to do that. Well, if I dug real deep, maybe I had the mental fortitude for it, but I didn’t have the arguments, persuasive position or standing army to make an argument of any real danger. In order to get the influence I needed to have an audible voice, I quietly allowed the Agarthans to believe everything was progressing according to plan, and organised small scale rebellions that the Agarthans could easily control, allowing them to believe that was all I was capable of while what I was really doing was winning the hearts of the people I worked with, so they would lend me their sword arms,” Edelgard said. The elder Sanaki didn’t seem particularly thrilled by that argument, and it did little to assuage the child’s fears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I had the Central Army answering to me. At least the Holy Knights. Er… how much did we have, again?” Sanaki asked her younger self.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only the pegasi and the wyverns were explicitly tied to us or the Senate. The Central Army obeys whoever they thought had the better arguments, which is usually the one who can hear the voice of the goddess,” the younger self said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can hear the voice of the goddess?” Edelgard asked, doubt not quite being fully suppressed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Regardless of whether apostles actually have that power, we never had it,” the older Sanaki said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. So you had faith in the Central Army to take your side on conviction alone. But the Senate didn’t play fair. They sweetened the deal on their side using hostages or something else incredibly foul, correct?” Edelgard asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hostages. Me, to be specific, and also my prime minister. A lot of the Central Army took our side once we stopped being captured,” Sanaki confirmed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You might not like it, but if you want to be winning the political race and not just count on tricks to steal the victory, you have to make sure that your enemies can’t play cards that devastate you. You have to steal those cards out of their hand. Ideally, you want to engineer circumstances where their cards advance your own goals. I had an institution that both me and the Agarthans thought should be destroyed, so I made use of their resources to help me gain power in service of doing that, and then started kneecapping them to make the eventual war against them easier,” Edelgard explained further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Working with the Senate? I can’t imagine anything we could both want at once!” the elder Sanaki exclaimed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you and the Senate truly completely polarised?” Edelgard asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure about ‘polarised’, but the Senate is pure evil! Not a night goes by where I don’t think about my mummy…” the younger Sanaki cried. Edelgard had to wonder what happened there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I’d like to say I don’t dream about my mother more often than once a week, but that’s because the new nightmares are worse. But the senate is in full support of laguz slavery, imperial conquest, and being excessively wealthy and influential and overall unpleasant. And even if there was something I felt I could benefit from doing, Begnion is such a powerful nation that there’s not much that either of us can’t do on their own if the other didn’t stick their nose in,” Sanaki explained. Edelgard nodded, accepting that fact as reasonable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That does sound like a tough situation. I’ll share it with some of my friends, see if they can’t think of anything I didn’t because I’m biased by my own circumstances, but my main advice is: don’t let it get you down. You’re doing the right thing, and you have the power to make that mean something. Don’t falter because other people tell you otherwise. There is always a better way, yes, and make sure you have people you trust to find those better ways, but you shouldn’t have to change paths completely on the say so of someone who barely knows what path he’d prefer instead,” Edelgard proclaimed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...I take it you have personal experiences like that? I didn’t have to face too much of that,” the elder Sanaki said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm… yeah, I imagine you wouldn’t. That’s precisely my point, however: I’m not you. My struggles are not yours. I can tell you what I would do, but I have fought my war for so long that I cannot adapt to your circumstances where they’re similar, but not quite the same, compared to mine. But I promise you- if your younger self can do anything about your fate, to achieve a happier ending for Begnion, then I will make sure that she has every tool she can take with her back to her time,” Edelgard assured her. The younger Sanaki gave a weak smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...So what happened to you?” the elder asked. Edelgard gave a weak chuckle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is a gruesome tale. If you really want to know, seek me out tomorrow morning, without your younger selves. Honestly, seventeen might be too young, but if you’re asking, I expect you’ll be strong enough to handle it,” Edelgard explained. The two Sanakis shared a concerned glance, and the elder knew she would have a fitful rest trying to figure out whether she would take up that offer.</span>
</p>
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